Thursday, September 28, 2006

A breath of fresh air

This past weekend I decided to get out of the apartment and go home to central PA. Both because I knew I would go crazy being in NYC over another weekend where I was stuck in recovery mode and because I don’t know that I’ll be able to get home again until Thanksgiving. Now, “home” is kind of a relative term, because my parents moved last week from the house I lived in for, oh right, my entire life, into a place they built in Williamsport. Conveniently, one of my coworker’s friends lives in the Susquehanna Valley as well, and they *happened* to be driving there Friday morning. They also live in Brooklyn. Seriously entertaining people, and a free ride home? Perfect.

Ok, so I failed to mention that though my parents address is Williamsport, a bustling town of 40,000 (read: the biggest town in a 45 minute radius), their house is really on top of a mountain, and you have to drive 10 minutes through the woods to get to it. No cell phone service kind of place. So I have to admit that it’s really kind of bizarre to see all of my furniture just kind of plopped in a new place, rearranged and reshuffled. Weird. Plus, since they just moved in, they’re still in unpack mode and there is nothing on any of the beautiful white walls. At all.

“My” bedroom- Ok, well, that’s just painful to think about.

HOWEVER, I must say that I truly enjoy going home, if even for the simple fact that those things that take seemingly forever to get done in a city (especially NYC), are a walk in the park here. Take going to the post office. Whereas on Friday before leaving Brooklyn, I stood in line for 15 minutes just to pick up a package from a man behind a double glass window (heaven forbid switching to another line to get stamps), I waited a mere 5 minutes to speak to a lovely woman who hand-bubble-wrapped and boxed my package, as well as took time to show me the variety of stamp designs for regular, postcard, and international stamps. I left with a smile on my face.

From there, I went to Office Depot to see if I could finally find a computer table, and what do you know, there were several on sale. A young male worker immediately asked if I needed any assistance, helped me measure several desks, and then loaded my (rather heavy) box onto a dolly and individually placed it in my car.

I think the greatest moment of the weekend was shopping in the grocery store. I forgot how truly amazing grocery stores are outside of the city. None of this narrows aisles, crappy produce, and zilcho variety business that you get in the city. When the man at the deli counter asked me what kind of American cheese I wanted, I was confused. And an entire cookie aisle? 2 aisles for pet food/supplies?? And 2 more for frozen foods? Wow. Just, friggin wow. I was planning on just getting some produce and maybe a few other odds and ends, but I ended up seeing so many things that I couldn’t easily get in Brooklyn that all of a sudden I had a full shopping cart. Oops. But I mean, at least I’ll be eating well for a few weeks. Yummmm.

Ok, so really, I decided to take some pictures of all the newness going on in my parents lives. ...

First of all, the new house, which everyone has been waiting to see... First from the front, then back. Picture it with grass and lanscaping, and off the back we'll have a deck and trees... Ok, and so my parents need to name the house, since out last house had a name (Westover). This house faces South, so maybe incoporating that into the name (to make a trend perhaps...) would be cool? Or not. Anyhow, suggestions welcome.

This is the view while standing on the front porch...

And this is inside the front foyer. I love the hardwood floors.

Moving on to some pics of the animals... Most of you know Hannah, but I didn't want her to feel left out...

And then Hannah with Kitty (I really hate that they named their first cat ever this...)

And last but certainly not least is the newest addition to the family- Niki. She's adorable. The pictures speak for themselves. And please note her size in comparison to the beany baby she's playing with. And I just love the one with my dad. Priceless.

Coming back to NYC was just a little bit harder when having to leave all of that behind.

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